Fed Looking For Other Occupations To Poison

Feds Revamp Waitress Compensation Due to e coli Poisoning
(A Tongue And Cheek Look At LO Compensation Changes Effective 4/1/11)

Regulators are proposing a change in how food servers in the United States are paid due to recent e coli poisoning at a local restaurant. E Coli (short for “Escherichia coli” ), can cause serious food poisoning in humans and the bacteria is responsible for occasional product recalls due to unsanitary conditions at Major Slaughterhouse ‘s around the country. Clearly the fault of the food server known as the “Waiter” or “Waitress”.

Mr. Tommy Aikey awoke a few days ago with food poisoning after having a Steak meal served by Wendy Knowfalt, a food server at “Steak and Ail”.

After Tommy Aikey reported the incident to local authorities, the legislators and regulators quickly got to work on a new bill that will prevent this type of food poisoning in the future. From the experts within the government, all indications show that clearly the waitress was at fault for the ordeal.

Here is a breakdown of the new regulation and the three main components:

* and waitresses will no longer be able to have their tips or other compensation based on the type of the meal they serve or based on the servers experience level, or service levels to the customer. For example:

• A Waiter or Waitress may not be paid more for a steak dinner, than a Shrimp or chicken dinner. They must be paid the same regardless of whether the food comes out warm, or cold due to any delay where the food was prepared while the server was on break.
• When customers order their meal, they must be presented with a minimum of 3 different menus from competing restaurants in the area.
• The customer must wait 3 hours to order their meal after signing a disclosure showing what type of salad, starch and vegetable will be served with the meal. If the restaurant owner provides these “ancillary” items – he may not charge a higher margin on one item over the other.

* to the waiter/waitress must be either paid by TIPS from the consumer, or by credit card – NOT by BOTH.

i. Note that for these purposes, both the Restaurant itself AND the Wait staff are considered “Servers”, thus – if the Credit card option is used to pay the cashier (owner of the restaurant), then NO TIPS may be accepted by the waitress.

* Provision and Safe Harbor.

i. A “Server” may not “Steer” a consumer into a meal by a certain animal type if they will receive greater compensation from that meal, than in other meals which may have been offered the consumer… unless the offered meal is in the consumers best interest (Safe Harbor).

* that it is unclear within the proposed law how far this legal definition goes, and the Feds are offering NO CLARIFICATION. If the same steak dinner is available 2 blocks away, is it in the best interest to send the client to the competing restaurant?
* serving Steak over Salmon in the best interest of the consumer’s health. All questions that have severe penalties and will only be clarified during future inspections of the restaurant by the Food Inspector.

Lastly, in another unrelated law that is being considered called QRM, or Qualified Reluctant Meals- certain Restaurant owners should be aware that they may have to eat 5% of the consumers meal prior to serving.

I did not write this - but felt COMPELLED to share it!

A Ladder Won't Get You To Top Of Google Anymore - Need A Step Stool

Laddertogoogle

It looks to me like you can't use a LADDER to get to the top of Goolge anymore. 

In the past - the ladder was

One side Content
One side links pointing to you

Now you need a Step Stool

The third leg is Social Interaction

I think that leg will increase in importance exponentially as Facebook and Google continue to fight for ad dollars.

I am not an expert - just an observer - so if I'm wrong, would love to know your thoughts.

 

-E.

Nothing is identical to the past, a look at Egypt

I found this internal report to be thought provoking - and wanted to share.  If you want to read more from STRATFOR you can sign up for their newsletters here.

Editor’s Note: The following is an internal STRATFOR document produced to provide high-level guidance to our analysts. This document is not a forecast, but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, as well as suggestions on areas for focus.

Let’s use the Iranian rising of 1979 as a model. It had many elements involved, from Communists, to liberals to moderate Muslims, and of course the radicals. All of them were united in hating the Shah, but not in anything else.

The Western press did not understand the mixture and had its closest ties with the liberals, for the simple reason that they were the most Western and spoke English. For a very long time they thought these liberals were in control of the revolution.

For its part, the intelligence community did not have good sources among the revolutionaries but relied on SAVAK, the Shah’s security service, for intelligence. SAVAK neither understood what was happening, nor was it prepared to tell the CIA. The CIA suspected the major agent was the small Communist Party, because that was the great fear at that time — namely, that the Soviets were engineering a plot to seize Iran and control the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, Western human rights groups painted the Shah as a monster and saw this as a popular democratic rising. Western human rights and democracy groups, funded by the U.S. government and others, were standing by to teach people like Bani Sadr to create a representative democracy.

Bani Sadr was the first post-Shah president. He was a moderate Islamist and democrat; he also had no power whatsoever. The people who were controlling the revolution were those around Ayatollah Khomeini, who were used by the liberals as a screen to keep the United States quiet until the final moment came and they seized control.

It is important to understand that the demonstrations were seen as spontaneous, but were actually being carefully orchestrated. It is also important to understand that the real power behind the movement remained opaque to the media and the CIA, because they didn’t speak English and the crowds they organized didn’t speak English, and none of the reporters spoke Farsi (nor did a lot of the intelligence agency people). So when the demonstrations surged, the interviews were with the liberals who were already their sources, and who made themselves appear far more powerful than they were — and who were encouraged to do so by Khomeini’s people.

It was only at the end that Khomeini ran up the Jolly Roger to the West.

Nothing is identical to the past, but Iran taught me never to trust a revolutionary who spoke English; they will tend to be pro-Western. When the masses poured into the streets — and that hasn’t happened in Egypt yet — they were Khomeini supporters who spoke not a word of English. The media kept interviewing their English-speaking sources and the CIA kept up daily liaison meetings with SAVAK — until the day they all grabbed a plane and met up with their money in Europe and the United States. The liberals, those who weren’t executed, also wound up in the United States, teaching at Harvard or driving cabs.

Let’s be very careful on the taxonomy of this rising. The Western human rights groups will do what they can to emphasize its importance, and to build up their contacts with what they will claim are the real leaders of the revolution. The only language these groups share with the identified leaders is English, and the funding for these groups depends on producing these people. And these people really want to turn Egypt into Wisconsin. The one thing I can guarantee is that is not what is going on.

What we have to find out is who is behind this. It could be the military wanting to stage a coup to keep Gamal Mubarak out of power. They would be doing this to preserve the regime, not to overthrow it. They could be using the demonstrations to push their demands and perhaps pressure Hosni Mubarak to leave voluntarily.

The danger is that they would be playing with fire. The demonstrations open the door for the Muslim Brotherhood, which is stronger than others may believe. They might keep the demonstrations going after Hosni leaves, and radicalize the streets to force regime change. It could also be the Muslim Brotherhood organizing quietly. Whoever it is, they are lying low, trying to make themselves look weaker than they are — while letting the liberals undermine the regime, generate anti-Mubarak feeling in the West, and pave the way for whatever it is they are planning.

Our job now is to sort through all the claimants and wannabees of this revolution, and find out who the main powers are. These aren’t spontaneous risings and the ideology of the people in the streets has nothing to do with who will wind up in power. The one thing to be confident of is that liberal reformers are the stalking horse for something else, and that they are being used as always to take the heat and pave the way.

Now, figure out who is really behind the demonstrations and we have a game.